Why Labour should support an English parliament

A devolved body could aid the party’s revival in England.

BY EDDIE BONEPUBLISHED 09 JULY 2012 11:34 

“An English parliament would be accompanied by a resurgent Labour movement in England”. Photograph: Getty Images.

The former Labour cabinet minister George Robertson declared that devolution would “kill nationalism stone dead”. Instead, it turned out to be the biggest threat the Union has ever faced. Devolution has given the Scottish National Party [SNP] the platform it needs to fulfil its dream of disbanding the United Kingdom.

Alex Salmond is proving just as adept at manipulating English public opinion as Scottish public opinion. The Campaign for an English Parliament , which I chair, has noticed a sharp increase in calls for English independence in line with the SNP’s campaign for Scottish independence. A ComRes survey forNewsnight showed that 36 per cent of people in England (and 47 per cent of skilled manual workers) now want England to become an independent state and to break up the United Kingdom.

The devolutionary problem is that it is too easy for nationalist politicians to indulge in political point scoring by blaming Westminster for their problems. And at a time of unprecedented public austerity these tensions are exacerbated yet further.

There are now distinct differences in state provision, including health, education (most notably tuition fees) and elderly care, between the different nations of the UK. These divisions are deliberately emphasised by nationalist politicians with the aim of inflaming national passions. And not only ostensibly nationalist politicians. Rhodri Morgan, Labour’s former First Minister for Wales, declared that his aim is to “make the English feel jealous”. But it is encouraging to hear Carwyn Jones now talk about the need for an English parliament.

The Union will only survive if it treats all its citizens fairly and equally. We need a solution that is fair to all the UK’s constituent nations, and that allows us to separate what divides us, from what unites us. If this is done in good faith, then there is no reason why a renewed Union cannot be cemented. At least, if it is done early enough, and before attitudes have hardened too far on all sides and the talk of independence becomes too entrenched

The only answer to these problems is to reinstate an English parliament matching those parliaments already granted to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. As Tony Benn proposed in his 1991 Private Member’s Bill “The Commonwealth of Britain”, this would mean national parliaments dealing with the issues that concern the individual nations of the United Kingdom. Just as there is no better way to drive a wedge between us than by treating the people of England as lesser citizens, there is no better way of reinforcing the UK family than by recognising our individual needs and treating us all equally.

The problem is that Westminster MPs will not vote for an English parliament that takes away most of their domestic powers. This is naked careerist self-interest. The remaining federal responsibilities would only need a much smaller Union parliament or, in other words, one with fewer MPs. And so even though every MP lost from the Union parliament could be an MP gained by an English parliament, they don’t want to take the risk of voting themselves out of a job.

There are other arguments against the restoration of an English parliament, of course. But they fall apart under the slightest scrutiny. The first of these is that an English Parliament would be inevitably dominated by the Conservative Party. Yet the same was said about the “inevitable” Labour domination of the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments, which simply did not happen. Democracy has a tendency to find a balance. An English parliament would be accompanied by a resurgent Labour movement in England under an English Labour Party, which in turn would improve the party’s standing in Westminster.

Labour established devolution in the first place in order to defend Scotland and Wales from what it saw as the depredations of an over-mighty Conservative parliament at Westminster. The same opportunity is now presenting itself. For instance, England’s forests were put up for sale by the coalition but the forests of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were all protected by their respective parliaments.

The second argument is that the current problems with the restored Scottish parliament would be replicated in a restored English parliament. This is unlikely as long as the resentment now building in England is dealt before the Scottish independence referendum. Labour cannot wait, procrastination will be fatal. National Devolution has emphasised the fault lines within the Union. Indeed, rather than trying to deny that these exist it is necessary to cement the Union along these lines by going still further and creating a federal state – the only practical way of separating what divides us from what unites us.

Nor is England “too big” for a federation to work. A federation would directly address the problem of an out-sized England because English voting weight would affect only England itself. If a federation with England wouldn’t work then a Union without a federation’s protections certainly couldn’t – except of course it did, for nearly 300 years before being undermined by devolution.

In his book Will Britain Survive Beyond 2020?, the Welsh Conservative Assembly Member David Melding argued: “The best way to preserve Britain as a multi-national state is to accept that the UK…requires a new settlement. This settlement will need to be federal in character so that the sovereignties of the Home Nations and the UK State can be recognised in their respective jurisdictions”. Henry McLeish, the former First Minister of Scotland, was also the man who saw the Scotland Act through Westminster. When speaking to the Calman Commission (on Scottish Devolution) he said that the English need a voice, and that he doesn’t think that our current asymmetrical devolution can be sustained. Furthermore, and I quote: “We must move towards some balanced framework, a quasi-federal framework, where it can make some sense rather than the English feeling aggrieved. At the end of the day, their grief and their anger spills over on to us.”

It’s not too late to resolve the problems that devolution has caused. But time is short. What do you chose – dissolution of the UK or a federal UK? If the latter, then action is urgently needed.

Eddie Bone is the chair of The Campaign for an English Parliament.

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Also seen on the BDF

Constitutional Case for an English Parliament

Historical Background

England has been a unified country for more than 1000 years. England and Wales were united by the Acts of Union (1536-43), which gave Welsh representatives the right to attend the English Parliament. The union of Scotland with England and Wales in 1707 saw the creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Thus, the English parliament became the core of a new British parliament and a new British state. Both were further enlarged when the Act of Union with Ireland (effective 1st January 1801) created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.The United Kingdom cultivated an inclusive British identity that was symbolised by the institutions of Parliament and the Monarchy. Thus the English, Irish, Scots, and Welsh have had their separate national identities and a common British civic identity. For the English, more than the others, the two identities became confused. Nelson, commanding a British fleet at Trafalgar, had no hesitation in phrasing his famous signal “England Expects…” although it is said that a Scottish sailor hoisted the flags. In a patriotic song, at a critical stage in the Second World War, the title was “There’ll Always be an England” although the verses referred also to the Union Flag, Britain and the Empire.

The British state, which was at its most powerful in the nineteenth century, began its decline early in the twentieth century. A long-lived campaign for home rule for Ireland was marked in its later stages by the Easter Rising of 1916, and the creation of the Irish Free State in 1921. The 1920 Home Rule Act incorporated six counties of Northern Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In 1921, Northern Ireland was granted limited self-government. The Irish Free State, consisting of 26 counties, became Eire in 1937, and then the Irish Republic in 1949.

The success of Irish nationalists was an important factor in the formation of Plaid Cymru in 1925 and the Scottish National Party in 1928. These parties were created with the aim of gaining home rule for Wales and Scotland. With the demise of the British Empire, after World War II, British identity meant less than it once had. The glue that bound the Union together became weaker and in Scotland and Wales, the expression of national identity and a desire for self-government became stronger. The SNP had its first MP elected in 1945; Plaid Cymru had to wait until 1966. In the October 1974 general election, the SNP gained 30% of the Scottish vote and won 11 parliamentary seats. Plaid Cymru gained 10% of the Welsh vote and had 4 MPs elected. In order to dampen support for Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party, the UK government made separate financial and constitutional arrangements for Scotland and Wales. These included departments of state for each country and, in 1978, favourable financial arrangements under the Barnett Formula. Because of exceptional circumstances, Northern Ireland was already receiving extra funding.

Despite special treatment, support for Scottish independence grew. In a referendum in 1979, a majority of the votes cast favoured a directly elected Scottish Assembly. However, the rules of the referendum stipulated that for the proposal to be successful it needed the support of the majority of all those eligible to vote. As a consequence of that, the proposal for a Scottish Assembly failed. This proved to be a setback for the SNP but with the approach of the 1997 general election support for the SNP was again growing. The Labour Party responded by offering the people of Scotland and Wales a form of devolved self-government, subject to a referendum, the result being decided by a majority of those voting.

The overriding issues are those of fairness and democracy. Following the 1997 referendum, Scotland gained a Parliament with devolved powers which included the right to enact primary legislation. At the same time the less pressing demands of the people of Wales were recognised by the creation of a Welsh Assembly with powers to decide priorities in the allocation of finances but without the power to enact primary legislation. Arrangements for Northern Ireland continued to be led by events peculiar to the Province. As part of the Peace Process, Northern Ireland was given an Assembly with devolved powers, including the right to enact primary legislation.The interests of the people of England have been ignored in making these important decisions to devolve power from Westminster. They have not been given the same opportunity as those in other parts of the UK to have an elected body of their own. They are left governed by a United Kingdom government and parliament that is elected by the whole UK electorate and must consider the interests of everyone in the UK. This means that the crucially important power to initiate policy and legislation in areas that affect only England lies with a UK government that does not have a specific mandate from the people of England.

The parliamentary aspect of the problems resulting from devolving powers to a Scottish Parliament was well expressed by the member of parliament for West Lothian (Tam Dalyell) who, before those powers were devolved, asked why MPs from Scottish constituencies in the House of Commons should be able to discuss and vote on English and Welsh legislation, while English and Welsh MPs could not vote on similar legislation affecting Scotland. This has been described as “The West Lothian Question”.

Furthermore, Ministers who control and administer legislation that affects only England may not represent English constituencies. The cabinet inevitably includes such Ministers and they have a corporate responsibility for the government of England. English legislation, unlike that devolved to Scotland, is also subject to consideration and amendment by the House of Lords, whose members include many who do not have the credentials to represent English interests. This situation has been described as “The English Question” and, in some uses, includes the West Lothian Question.

In addition to the unfairness outlined above, the people of England are subject to legislation enacted by a UK Parliament in which they are under-represented. Scotland and Wales have more MPs per head of population than does England. For example, Scotland has 8·6% of the UK population but 10·8% of MPs. England has 83·7% of UK population but 80·7% of MPs.

The Barnett formula is also the cause of a growing sense of unfairness to the people of England as they see the ability of the Scots not only to decide their priorities but also to benefit from the more ample financial resources made available to them.

It is not just the financial and parliamentary aspects that affects the people of England. There are also cultural and educational factors to consider. None of the arrangements relating to devolution acknowledge English identity and culture, nor provide a means for promoting them. These and other forms of discrimination are difficult to challenge and remedy because there is no elected body that represents and pursues the interests of all the people of England. These anomalies draw frequent and continuing public attention to any event in which there is apparent Scottish involvement in English matters. They fuel an increasing resentment among the people of England who feel that they are being treated unfairly with their democratic interests ignored. Devolution elsewhere is causing more and more of them to see their primary identity as English, and to rediscover England’s long history as an independent country enjoying democratic traditions and political freedoms. Following the lead of others, the people of England are beginning to demand that their voice should now be heard.

The Barnett Formula

The underlying justification for the introduction of the Barnett Formula was that all areas of the UK were entitled to broadly the same level of public services and that the expenditure on them should be allocated according to their relative need. In 1976, a study of relative needs and expenditure for different parts of the UK found that expenditure (per person) in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should be higher than in England in order to meet their greater needs. An additional allocation of funds was recommended so that the gap between the level of public services in England and other parts of the UK could be closed. It was estimated that expenditure in Scotland needed to be 20% higher per person than in England. In 1978 Joel Barnett calculated a formula for distributing central government funds between Scotland, Wales and England. The ratio for spending was as follows:- Scotland: Wales: England – 10: 5: 85 The ratio, which roughly reflected the size of the respective populations, ensured that public spending per person in Scotland and Wales would be higher than in England. The formula was adjusted in 1992 to reflect 1991 population levels but it still understated the size of England’s population and overstated Scotland’s population.Since the introduction of the Barnett Formula there has been no further assessment of relative need. The position now is that Wales receives less public expenditure than it needs to attain the original objective, while Scotland receives too much. There is a case for helping Wales, which is one of the poorer parts of the UK, but it is plainly unfair to subsidise the entire population of Scotland to the tune of £30 per person per week. In the financial year 1993/4, identifiable government spending was 21% per person higher in Scotland than in England. By 1995/6 it had increased to 24%, and for Wales it was 17% higher.

The position for England, and especially its most needy areas, is worst than the figures above suggest. The 24% extra that Scotland receives is for all public service and welfare spending, including that on social security. Spending in policy areas that have been devolved to Scotland has been on average 31% per person higher in Scotland than in England. Spending in Scotland on health and personal social services was 22% higher; education 31% higher; transport 31% higher; trade, industry, energy and employment 55% higher; housing 87% higher; agriculture 123% higher. This despite Scotland being the third wealthiest region in the UK. (London and the South East were counted as one region in 1995/6) The additional funding for services in Scotland under the Barnett formula amounts to £8 billion each year. It is for this reason that public spending on health and education is higher per person in Scotland than in England. This has meant, for example, smaller class sizes in Scotland, higher pay for teachers, and the availability of NHS prescription drugs that are unavailable in England on grounds of cost.

On 22nd June 2000, Lord Barnett gave evidence to the Commons Treasury Select Committee. “I didn’t know it would last all of these years. I thought it was a temporary expedient but it finished up as a formula – nobody wanted to change it. There is huge scope for improvement because there was no assessment of real needs – that’s the real trouble. So consequently this formula that I used in 1978 is still being used today and that was purely political – there was no proper needs assessment – but Margaret Thatcher and John Major were frightened to change it for fear of loosing seats. The present government are reluctant to change it despite the fact that it clearly needs changing, and you should look at real needs – they are reluctant to change it now because they fear what will happen because of devolution in Scotland &- Scotland gets far more than it should.”

The Solutions

An essential part of the solutions to the problems outlined above is an English Parliament with a mandate to represent the interests of the whole of England and all its people. A parliament and executive would provide the people of England with the means for negotiating a fair distribution of public spending within the UK and allow them to allocate resources in a way that best meets their needs. Unity and co-operation within a natural political and cultural unit would be more fruitful than competition between artificial regions.There are those, like Lord Chancellor Irvine, a Scotsman, who are content with the present unfair arrangement and see no need to offer the people of England the same choice that was given to the people of Scotland. They argue that the West Lothian and English Questions should not be asked or answered. They are satisfied to see the constitution evolve in a gradual fashion while keeping the people of England content with the offer of Regional Government, which will dismember England into nine regions, each with its own assembly. This approach has been described by Will Hutton as “a witches’ brew of internecine rivalries.”

The Regional Assemblies would not have powers to enact primary legislation on devolved matters such as education, the NHS, and transport, which will need to be controlled countrywide. The assemblies and associated unelected quangos would be another tier of local government and bureaucracy, probably leading to the end of County Councils and therefore more remote from the electorate than at present. The regional approach attracts those who favour a European government of the Regions but, in breaking England into competing regions, it would be a partial reversion of England to the 9th century, yet without an adequate historical, cultural, or geographic basis for their boundaries. The parliamentary and government problems of the West Lothian and English questions would continue since Westminster would still have to enact all the primary legislation needed to govern England. (See Question Proposals have also been made to alter parliamentary procedure to deal with the West Lothian Question. These seek to debar MPs of Scottish constituencies from discussing and voting on English legislation (and similar restrictions on Welsh and Irish MPs when appropriate). This would significantly breach the principle of equality of members of the United Kingdom parliament and would be unworkable and chaotic in the possible circumstance of a government with an overall majority but not one of English MPs. The proposals also fail to address the problem of government (as opposed to parliamentary) control of English legislation. A continuing constitutional argument would result with procedures being amended by successive governments to serve their own interests and this would lead to unstable government.

The solution of devolving powers over English legislation to an English Parliament, with similar action for Wales, has therefore been advanced to ensure that all parts of the United Kingdom receive equal treatment. It would provide a full answer to the English and West Lothian Questions, satisfy the growing sense of unfairness in England, and resolve the constitutional anomalies that have unbalanced the Union. Inevitably, it would be a major step in constitutional development but it has not yet been endorsed by any of the three main political parties.

The creation of an English Parliament is not only about achieving a devolution settlement that is fair. It is also about encouraging innovation and openness in our democracy. What better way to build on the English democratic tradition than by establishing an English Parliament? A Parliament designed for modern conditions which would make governments more accountable to those who elect them. The Campaign for an English Parliament was formed in 1998 and is growing steadily into a countrywide organisation. It is not a political party, nor is it allied to any political party, but it seeks to persuade public opinion and politicians of all parties that an English Parliament is the best way forward. It recognises that the proposal needs deep and careful consideration, and in this pamphlet it puts forward its Aim and answers some of the questions that flow from it.

The Aim

The aim of the Campaign is to achieve an English Parliament and Executive with powers at least equivalent to those powers devolved to Scotland.The Campaign for an English Parliament seeks the creation of an English parliament and Executive based on the Scottish model, with power devolved to them from the UK parliament. The proposed constitutional arrangements will need the approval of the people of England.

To provide a full answer to the constitutional problems and provide a fairer system of devolved government for all parts of the United Kingdom, it would also be necessary to upgrade the Welsh Assembly to become a Welsh Parliament with similar devolved powers. However, that is a matter for the people of Wales and it is not therefore a specific aim of the Campaign for an English Parliament.

As well as solving the current constitutional problems, an English Parliament would:
Strengthen democratic control and make government more accountable to the people of England.
Enable the people of England to express their own priorities and direct spending to where it is most needed.
Better enable the people of England to pursue policies, which help preserve England’s identity and improve its environment.
Give England a voice (similar to that of Scotland) in the European Union.
Provide a partial realisation of the right to self-government to which the people of all countries aspire.

What powers would be devolved to an English Parliament?

Many of the powers presently exercised by the UK government, such as defence and foreign affairs, would become reserved matters. Those areas of government which are not specifically reserved, would be devolved matters. The main reserved matters are those that relate to:
the UK constitution;
foreign policy;
defence;
employment legislation;
social security policy and administration;
transport safety and regulation.

The devolved powers would be greater than is commonly supposed, and include responsibility for important areas of everyday life such as:
the National Health Service in England;
schools and teacher training;
further and higher education;
local government finance and taxation;
land-use planning and building control;
the environment;
passenger and road transport;
economic development and financial assistance to industry;
civil and criminal courts;
much of criminal and civil law;
prisons;
police and fire services;
food standards;
certain areas of agriculture and fisheries;
the arts;
sport.

Members of the English Executive would be able to formulate policies that suit the demands and interests of the people of England. They would be able to give priority to local needs within natural political and cultural boundaries. In addition, the Executive would be able to represent the interests of England to the UK government and the European Union.

Questions
Would the creation of an English Parliament result in a system of Federal Government of the United Kingdom?

An English Parliament modelled on the Scottish Parliament would not require the introduction of a federal system of government. A federal system would involve having a written constitution for the United Kingdom that would legally enshrine the powers of the Parliaments of the countries that form the United Kingdom. In a devolved system, following the example of Scotland, the Parliament of the United Kingdom would retain its sovereign powers. The powers devolved would be subject to change by statute enacted by that parliament. Our unwritten constitutional arrangements would adapt and evolve to produce a uniquely British system of democratic government.

Would an English Parliament lead to the break up of the United Kingdom?

The Union is a political idea that has survived for nearly three hundred years in spite of many changing circumstances. An English Parliament modelled on the Scottish Parliament would not, itself, lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom, which would continue but in a different form. The strongest demand for withdrawal is from Scotland, where independence is an objective of the SNP. Scotland was accorded devolved powers in the expectation that it would help to keep it in the United Kingdom. The Campaign for an English Parliament seeks the same democratic structures and opportunities for England. If that reasonable demand is not met, there will be an injustice festering at the heart of the UK constitution. That injustice would become increasingly evident and resented should a government without a majority of parliamentary seats in England, use the votes of Scottish and Welsh MPs to push through policies and legislation that apply only to England. It is that, not an English Parliament, which will generate ill feeling and undermine confidence in the Union. It is better to address the problem now rather than wait until discontent grows, as it surely will, and undermines confidence in the political process.

Would an English Parliament become too powerful since it would represent a disproportionately large number of people and wealth compared with the other parts of the Union?

An English Parliament with the same devolved powers of a Scottish Parliament would not unbalance the Union. Each parliament would be responsible for policy and the allocation of resources within its own territory. The effect of size would be no greater than that already existing in the UK parliament where 81% of the MPs represent English constituencies. Devolution marks an important stage in English constitutional and democratic history. The people of England are entitled to be consulted and given a choice about the form devolution should take. Other matters, such as those relating to the size and power of England, can be dealt with in a constitutional settlement for the whole UK, which could include reform of the House of Lords.

Would a United Kingdom Parliament with only retained powers provide an effective, overall government?

English matters take up over half the time of the present parliament, which frequently complains that there is insufficient time available to discuss and decide on important legislation. There would be more time to concentrate on important international, European, economic, defence and Union matters that are vital to the whole UK. Every MP would have a complete interest in the subjects under consideration. Even more importantly, Ministers would have greater time to devote to issues affecting the destiny of the United Kingdom and preserving its interests internationally.

How would an English Parliament affect proposals for a reformed Second Chamber?

Following the Scottish model, primary English legislation on matters devolved to an English Parliament would not be subject to review by a Second Chamber, but legislation concerning the extensive retained powers would continue to be reviewed. With English MPs continuing to be the largest group in the Commons, a second chamber is likely to continue to be needed in the UK Parliament to ensure that the interests of all parts of the UK are given full consideration. The Constitutional Committee of the House of Lords, or its successor, may be of importance in resolving any problems concerning the definition and use of retained and devolved powers. However, the powers and constitution of the Second Chamber are separate subjects that should not directly affect or delay the devolution of powers to an English Parliament.

How should a decision on an English Parliament be made?

A referendum should be held. To consider the full implications and frame the right questions (based on those put to Scotland), this would need to be preceded by a Constitutional Commission, ideally with all party support. In order to prevent delay, the Commission would need to be given a latest date for its recommendations.

What would be the size of an English Parliament and what would be the voting method used for its election?

These are pertinent questions for decision by a Constitutional Commission. Obviously, there are problems of proliferating the number of MPs. However, this was not allowed to affect the decision on devolution to Scotland and Wales where, because of the proportional representation system adopted, the numbers elected to their Parliament and Assembly exceed the number of their Westminster MPs. In any case, the representational requirements of an English Parliament are likely to be less than the total numbers needed for nine regional assemblies and cost far less. A full review of the representational needs of the Westminster Parliament has been advocated (Norton Report) and, while changes to constituencies would affect all parliaments, including an English Parliament, this should not become a reason for delaying its creation.

Would Regional Government in England be a better solution for English democracy?

Regional Government cannot be an alternative to an English Parliament because it is impracticable to devolve powers of enacting primary legislation to nine regions (covering subjects such as the NHS, education and transport). The existing problems identified in the West Lothian and English questions would remain. However, an English Parliament would have the power to alter the local government systems in England and this could include the introduction of some form of Regional Government, if that is what the people of England want. For instance, an English Parliament might wish to have a Select Committee for each region with the elected English MPs of each region being the equivalent of an Assembly.

Where would the English Parliament sit?

This would need to be an early democratic decision of the English Parliament and it could be sited anywhere in England. The Constitutional Commission would need to select a convenient temporary building to start with.
Proposals have been put forward for an English Parliament in the House of Commons with the House of Lords becoming the United Kingdom Parliament. Alternatively, that the present MPs from English constituencies should sit as an English Parliament for part of the week, with a separate English executive.

Are these valid proposals?

These are matters for consideration by a Constitutional Commission. The Campaign is for the establishment of an English Parliament and Executive with powers at least equivalent to those devolved to Scotland. All options for exactly how it should be established should be examined democratically and resulting recommendations put to the people in a referendum.

Who are the “People of England” who should be represented in an English Parliament ?

Every person on the electoral roll in England would be eligible to elect an MP to serve their interests and those of their children.

Is there really a serious constitutional problem to worry about?

Ever since devolution to Scotland and Wales in 1997 there has been a growing concern about the Constitution, including the effect on the government of England. This is evidenced by many Parliamentary discussions, letters, articles and comment in the media and a spate of books, pamphlets, reports and speeches. To name but a few, they include:
John Barnes, Federal Britain &- No Longer Unthinkable, Centre for Policy Studies 1998.
Teresa Gorman MP, A Parliament for England 1999.
William Hague speeches:
Thinking creatively about the Constitution Feb 1998;
Strengthening the Union after Devolution July 1999 (both to the Centre of Policy Studies
A Conservative View of Constitutional Change in Oxford, November 2000.
Professor, Lord Norton, Report of the Commission to Strengthen Parliament July 2000.
Jocelyn Ormond, An English Parliament &- A Proposal for Fairness and Transparency in a New Constitutional Settlement for Britain, Bow Group 1999.
Professor Robert Hazell, Constitutional Futures &- History of the Next Ten Years, 1999, ISBN 0-19-829801-3
Professor Robert Hazell, The State and the Nations : The First Year of Devolution, December 2000, ISBN 0-907845-80-0.
Andrew Marr, The Day Britain Died, 2000, ISBN 1-86197-223-7 (This was the subject of a major BBC TV Series.)
Jeremy Paxman, The English, 1998, ISBN 0-7181-4263-2
Simon Heffer, Nor Shall my Sword : The Re-invention of England, 1999
Norman Davies, The Isles : A History, 1999.
Michael Wood, In Search of England, 1999, ISBN 0-140-24733-5
Peter Hitchens, The Abolition of Britain, reprint 2000, ISBN 0-7043-8140-0
John Humphrys, The Rape of the Constitution, 2000, ISBN 0-907845-70-3
John Lovejoy, The Deculturalisation of the English People, 2000, ISBN 1-903313-00-7
Tony Linsell (Ed), Our Englishness, 2000, ISBN 1-898281-24-6
Vernon Bogdanor, Devolution in the United Kingdom, ISBN 0-19-289310-6
Roger Scruton, England &- An Elegy, 2000
Tony Linsell, An English Nationalism, 2001, ISBN 1-903313-01-5
Sir Richard Body, England for the English, 200, ISBN 1-872410-14-6

Are the people of England really concerned ?

There is a steadily increasing concern as the debate develops and the unfairness to England resulting from devolution to Scotland becomes more apparent. In a report by the National Council for Social Research (1999) it was stated that the number of English people who declared that their allegiance solely to England had more than doubled to 17% from 7% in the last two years. Over 32% saw themselves as more English than British while over 37% saw themselves as equally British and English. In spite of considerable publicity for Regional Assemblies, only 15% expressed themselves in favour of the Assemblies while 18% favoured the much less publicised idea of a new English Parliament. These percentages indicate a strong developing trend towards the electorate believing that England and its people have interests and priorities that may be different from other parts of the United Kingdom. Furthermore, continuing irritations are expressed in the media about matters such as:
The ability of the Scottish Parliament to introduce legislation more favourable to its people than that applicable to those in England e.g. University fees; Care of the Elderly; certain NHS prescription drugs being available in Scotland but not England.
The Barnett formula, which provides considerably more money to Scotland and Wales compared with England, based on relative populations.
The denigration of any attempt to express support for England or Englishness.
Government forms, such as those for the Census, which do not recognise English nationality.
MPs from Scottish constituencies being over represented in the United Kingdom Parliament, having 72 existing MPs instead of the 57 that would be a fair and equitable comparison with the representation of English constituencies.

Conclusion

England is the home of a democratic tradition that has given rise to a distinctive system of law and parliamentary democracy which has served as a model for others. It is a proud and major part of the United Kingdom, a powerful and successful state of worldwide influence and importance. However, the devolution of powers to a Scottish Parliament has seriously unbalanced the Union, producing difficult constitutional problems in dealing with English matters in the House of Commons and the Government. A sense of profound unfairness is growing among the people of England. Creating Regional Assemblies in England would not remove the problems, as it is impractical to devolve to them the power to enact primary legislation. Amending parliamentary procedures in the House of Commons would not solve the English Question and would lead to continuing constitutional unrest as each new government changed the rules.

An English Parliament with devolved powers similar to those accorded to the Scottish Parliament would (with similar action for Wales) continue the process of devolution and produce a uniquely British system of government, owing nothing to the federal systems of other countries. It would produce an improved decentralised system of democratic government, bringing power to make decisions on priorities nearer to all the people of the United Kingdom. Devolved powers to an English Parliament would also enable the United Kingdom Parliament and Government to concentrate on its retained powers, including the vital matters of international relations, defence and the economy. The principle of devolving powers to an English Parliament should be referred to a Constitutional Commission that would examine the detailed aspects of implementation and provide recommendations to be decided by a Referendum. A parliament is a symbol of a people’s identity, unity, culture, and history. That belief was a key motivation in the campaign for a Scottish Parliament. It would be a great historic injustice for the people of England to be offered anything less.

Another brilliant piece from Gareth, and I would like to share it with you all. LINK

A very thought provoking  look at the perspective of leftist attitudes towards England.

Gareth Young is a Member and top campaigner for the CEP. Please Join and make a difference.

The Left’s Oppositional Attitude Towards England

Gareth Young, 8 July 2010

If you want to understand the Left’s antagonistic attitude towards England and English identity then I recommend that you listen to this talk by Charlie Kimber and thediscussion which followed. They would rather steal from the poor box than embrace their English identity. For them Englishness is a repository of all that is bad, racist, imperialist, conservative, white, reactionary and capitalist about Britain. The sluice gate marked Englishness is what they can open to purge Britishness of anything negative. As one woman put it: “It doesn’t matter how many times your wash the English flag you will never wash away the blood of Empire”.

During their thirteen years of power the Labour party promoted Britain and Britishness, and Scottishness and Welshness, but did absolutely nothing for England (except attempt to balkanise it into regions against England’s will and milk the English taxpayer like a cash cow). But having deservedly lost English votes at the general election there are signs that they are waking up the debate on the English Question.John Denham has recently given us his views on reclaiming St George’s Day, the English flag and promoting a progressive idea of English identity. David Miliband has arbitrarily dismissed the idea of an English parliament and – quite selfishly – suggested that Labour should be leading the national conversation on England that they have studiously ignored for so long in order to win back votes.

On Radio 4′s Broadcasting House on 4th July, listeners were treated to Michael Rosen, a popular author and voice of the far-left, informing the audience that England did not even exist.

“We’re not giving them the grass roots support but I don’t think that’s why England failed. England fails because if you think you are a high paid footballer playing anywhere in the world, why would you want to play for this thing called England? It isn’t even a nation. Great Britain is the nation. Why would you want to? Let’s say you’re Rooney, let’s say you’re Terry – you beat it out for nine months against each other where everything matters day by day, then suddenly you’re sent away to a weird camp for three weeks to play for an entity that doesn’t really exist. I mean, I’m not blaming them, but why would you want to do it?”

And today Rick Muir of IPPR treats us to the ludicrously titled “The English left needs to reclaim English identity”. As if to suggest that English identity was once the property of the left. Rick informs us that “Scottish and Welsh national identity have managed to become inclusive civic identities precisely because those countries have political institutions with which all citizens can identify” and then goes on to argue against an English parliament. His pearls of his wisdom include:
There is no comparable crisis [of democratic legitimacy] in England.
the West Lothian question is an anomoly, but does anyone really care?
There is very little support for this [a solution to the West Lothian Question].
An English parliament would likely exacerbate [the weakness of local government].
Federalism in a state dominated by one component (England) would likely lead to separation.
by trying to solve a tiny anomoly (West Lothian) you end up creating a series of even worse problems.

The usual unsubstantiated rhetoric about the deleterious effects that an English parliament would have on democracy and Britain, it’s the sort of thing that we’re more used to hearing from politicians like Lord Falconer rather than someone purporting to be a serious academic. I’ve asked Rick whether he supports the right of the English to decide how we are governed.

Why doesn’t the left ask the people that they are supposed to represent what they want rather than arbitrarily ruling out an English parliament. Where’s the democratic left?

How do you hope to reclaim Englishness from a position of dictating to the English on what’s best for them?

Rick has declined to answer. But in Rick’s stead some joker named Peter Jukes has popped up to state: “I don’t want popular sovereignty for England.” That says it all. I welcome the Labour’s attempt to discuss the English Question, even if it is for purely selfish and partisan reasons, but in doing so they are going to run up against the problem of exposing their general antipathy towards England, and highlighting a significant constituency of left-wingers that are vehemently anti-English and opposed to the very idea of England itself. They have ignored the English Question for years for fear of exposing the dark racist underbelly of the Labour Party, but now they have to discuss England because their failure to connect with England has caused Labour to lose touch with their traditional supporters, the majority of whom are very happy to be English.

All is not lost. There are people on the left that do love England and are not hamstrung by irrational anglophobia. People like Frank Field, David Dyke and Andy Newman will keep chipping away at left-wing anti-English prejudice. Whether or not their common sense attitude prevails will determine whether or not the left manage to reconnect with England.

Cross-posted from Toque.

With the publishing of the Welsh Commission report, it seems that it is being called for proportional funding based on need, well it is a start but this needs to be implemented. The English tax payer has far too long been paying through the teeth to balance the books of all the other parts of the union. This is unfair as the English get per head, less than every other person in the defunct Union.

When will the people of England open their eyes and see the injustice in this practice, better and free university education – not in England, free or cheap prescriptions – not in England and better services – not in England.

From the CEP

A report commissioned by the Welsh government says that Scotland’s subsidy under the Barnett Bribe should be cut by £4bn if funding is allocated based on need rather than population and political expediency as it current is.

The Welsh government has been promised a referendum by the Brits on turning the Welsh Assembly into a Welsh Parliament and a commission has suggested that the Welsh government should have the power to vary income tax by 3p – a power the Scottish government already has. The Brits have also promised the Scottish government more powers over taxation and an independence referendum will be held some time soon north of the border.

And England? The West Lothian Question has been kicked into the long grass with a promise of an unspecified commission at some point in the future with no changes to the unconstitutional and institutionally racist system of imperialist British government of England in the meantime.

From the Scotsman

£4bn budget warning

SCOTLAND’s budget could be cut by £4 billion if the Barnett formula was scrapped and funding calculated on how much the country needed, a report on devolution funding commissioned by the Welsh Assembly claimed.
Authors David Miles and Gerald Holtham said the formula should be abolished as it did not allocate money fairly across the UK because it was based on population and not what was needed to pay for public services in different areas of the UK.

“An assessment consistent with those used to distribute health, local government and education spending around England could eventually result in Scotland getting as much as £4bn less than it currently does,” Mr Miles and Mr Holtham wrote.

The report, “Fairness and Responsibility”, called for a reform of devolution that would see the Welsh Assembly handed powers to vary income tax levels in their country by up to 3p in the pound, a power already held by Holyrood.

From the BBC

Row over draft referendum question on assembly powers

A new dispute has begun over the Welsh assembly powers referendum with a row over the wording of the question.

The Electoral Commission is considering the draft question put forward by Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan.

But the assembly government says it is “disappointed” not to agree the words with her, and called it “deficient”.

The commission has 10 weeks to consult on the question ahead of a probable 2011 referendum on further powers for the Welsh assembly.

The exact wording of the question is: “Do you agree that the assembly should now have powers to pass laws on all subjects in the devolved areas without needing the agreement of Parliament first?”

We are disappointed that we could not agree a question with the Wales Office
Welsh Assembly Government

Even before this process started, the assembly government made it clear that it did not agree with Mrs Gillan’s question.

A spokesman for the assembly government said: “We are disappointed that we could not agree a question with the Wales Office.

“We feel the suggestion put forward today by the secretary of state is deficient and does not accurately reflect the issue that voters will be asked to decide.

“We will therefore be submitting an amended, shortened version to the Electoral Commission as an alternative proposal.”

This is the latest row between the UK and Welsh governments surrounding the referendum.

The assembly government had stated that it preferred a referendum in the autumn of 2010, but Mrs Gillan ruled that date out and criticised her predecessor, Labour’s Peter Hain, for not doing enough preparatory work to enable an autumn referendum.

Despite the alternative assembly government submission, the Electoral Commission is only funded to carry out its statutory duty – and that is to consider the question submitted to it by the Welsh secretary.

As a result the proposal from the assembly government will not receive any consideration as part of the formal consultation process.

From Our Kingdom a piece by Gareth Young

The Coalition Government Ducks the English Question

Gareth Young, 7 June 2010

England may have voted Conservative at the general election but it won’t be Conservative policy on the West Lothian Question that England gets. The Conservatives won a majority of seats in both England and England & Wales, yet their promise to the voters of England and Wales that ‘a Conservative government will introduce new rules so that legislation referring specifically to England, or to England and Wales, cannot be enacted without the consent of MPs representing constituencies of those countries’ has been reneged upon in favour of a ‘commission to consider the West Lothian question’.

The Conservatives have been considering the West Lothian Question for the past twelve years. Ken Clarke’s Democracy Task Force had considered it in depth and at length. However, in last week’s written ministerial statement on the Machinery of Government, we discovered that responsibility for considering the West Lothian Question would not lie with Ken Clarke’s Ministry of Justice. Instead it is Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg who has been handed ‘special responsibility’ for ‘considering the West Lothian Question’.

The letter that I recently received from Nick Clegg’s office tends to suggest that Clegg favours mitigating the West Lothian Question rather than answering it.
We recognise that devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland poses difficult questions for the governance of England within the Union. I think it’s important to be honest about the fact that it is difficult to find an immediate solution. The idea of ‘English votes for English laws’ is extremely complicated to implement – particularly because many laws actually extend to England only in some parts, while covering other parts of the UK in other areas. Given the fact that changes in spending on English services which would be devolved in the rest of the UK directly affect the devolved administration’s budgets, it is also often the case that ‘English’ legislation actually will affect devolved issues outside of England. We believe that we can only really deal with this question by looking at it as part of the wider political system. We need to do more, first of all, to give more power to people locally in England – so that they, too, have more control over their own affairs rather than being micromanaged from Whitehall. We want to give local communities real power over their health services and policing, through fairly elected local health boards and police authorities – as well as freeing the hands of local councils, removing power from Westminster and Whitehall. Ultimately, we want to move towards a federal United Kingdom – devolving power within England further and thus resolving this question.

The voters of England will not get what the Conservatives promised them. And to make matters worse we will not get what the Liberal Democrats promised us (the Liberal Democrat manifesto promised to “address the status of England within a federal Britain” through a “constitutional convention”). Oh no. The status of England will not be recognised by English Votes on English Laws or addressed through a constitutional convention, instead England faces more piecemeal constitutional reform that ducks the English Question altogether, denied any recognition of nationhood by a manifesto for government that nobody voted for.

Piece by George Monbiot

Someone Else’s England

You don’t have to be a nationalist, or English, to accept the case for an English parliament.

One of the most striking features of the massive response to my article last week on Hazel Blears and the Labour Party was the number of Labour activists who wrote in to agree. If, as I suspect, their fury and dejection is representative, Labour will be eliminated at the next election. Just three years ago, almost all the pundits agreed that the Tories were finished as an electoral force. Suddenly, Labour looks like the force that might never recover. Has any party in modern politics done more to squander the goodwill that swept it into power?

But I noticed something else as well: something that wasn’t there. Every other issue I mentioned was picked over and debated. One was not. It concerns the most glaring democratic deficit over which this government has presided, yet almost everyone is too polite to mention it.

Three nations in the United Kingdom, as a result of one of this government’s rare progressive policies, now possess a representative assembly. The fourth and largest does not. England, the great colonising nation, has become a colony. It is governed by a Scotsman who uses foreign mercenaries – Scottish, Welsh and Irish MPs – to suppress parliamentary revolts over purely English affairs. There is still no democratic forum in which English interests can be discussed only by English representatives. The unfairness is staggering, the silence stranger still.

One of the peculiarities of UK politics is that issues which hardly anyone supports receive majority assent in parliament. Under the current system, no popular support is required. University top-up fees, for example, were rejected by the Scottish and Welsh assemblies, but Scottish and Welsh MPs were frogmarched through the lobbies to impose them on England (the government won by five votes). Foundation hospitals were voted down in both Wales and Scotland, and foisted on the English by the representatives of those nations. Had Heathrow’s third runway been debated only by English MPs, the proposal would have been resoundingly defeated; it was approved by 19 votes, after 67 MPs from the other nations were induced to support the government. They can support such measures without any electoral risk, as their constituents are not directly affected. Devolution, which has had such beneficial consequences here in Wales and across the other borders, has left the English high and dry.

So why does no one – with the honourable exception of a tiny band of thinkers like Paul Kingsnorth and Gareth Young – who is even vaguely on the left want to discuss it? Perhaps it is because two quite different issues have been muddled up: democracy and nationalism. English nationalism takes many forms, but the image which comes to most minds is of skinheads waving the flag of St George. These are, or should be, separate concerns. You don’t have to be a nationalist, or English, to accept the case for an English parliament.

Last month I was fiercely attacked by the Campaign for an English Parliament (CEP) for writing that “England means nothing to me”. I meant two things. First that I consider myself a global citizen – a member of the species – before I consider myself a national citizen. I believe that everyone has an equal entitlement to the world’s wealth and power. I don’t love England, but nor do I hate it. I am indifferent. Secondly, I do not know what England means. The problem for those who wish to define this nation is that England has universalised itself. English culture, thanks to English imperialism, has seeped into everyone’s culture; the English language has become everyone’s language. The acts of union, forged by a dominant England, have submerged English identity into a British or Unionist identity. British imperialism, in turn, has destroyed the sense of a discrete and self-contained nation. The values, language, governance and business structures, the global integration we imposed on other nations have come back to bite us.

The hero of the film Slumdog Millionaire, for example, works in a call centre in which cold-callers in Mumbai, tutored in British accents, politics, weather and geography, seek to persuade their British customers that they are phoning from just around the corner. I happen to think that the transfer of jobs like this is a good thing, a restitution of employment once forcibly relocated from India to England, but I realise that most people here are appalled by the implications. Whether you approve or not, you have to accept that Finland has no such issues, as no one else was forced to speak Finnish.

Those five words in December, claimed the CEP’s head of media, Michael Knowles, were “as good an illustration anyone can get of the prejudice England experiences from the UK Establishment.” It is because of the “indifference and hostility” of people like me that the English “are so discriminated against”.

Knowles, in other words, confused a good case founded on democracy and human rights with patriotism, giving people of more cosmopolitan views every excuse they need to turn away. To support an English parliament, you don’t have to love England, you have only to love democracy.

Labour politicians use this excuse to sustain the government’s inordinate executive power. Instead of a parliament, England has been given nine regional assemblies. Only one of them (in London) has been elected; hardly anyone even knows that the others exist. They represent the opposite of devolution: a transfer of power away from local authorities towards a higher level of government, over which the people have no direct control. Next year they will be turned into Local Authority Leaders’ Boards, representing the final abandonment of the government’s promise of regional referenda leading to elected assemblies.

On Sunday David Cameron revealed his own plan: a great bog of fudge pudding which makes the parliamentary system even more complex and opaque than it is already. “For English-only legislation, we would have a sort of English grand committee,” he told the Mail on Sunday. In “exceptional circumstances” (and what isn’t?) the committee can be overruled by the rest of the Commons. Today he writes in the Guardian of his plan for a “radical decentralisation, to reach every corner of the country” and turn Britain’s “pyramid of power on its head”. But there’s not a word about an English parliament.

No one is suggesting we disband the government of the United Kingdom (though I propose that it be moved close to the geographical centre of the UK – Liverpool, say, or Rhyl). The Campaign for an English Parliament argues that it should retain control over matters such as the UK’s constitution, foreign and defence policy, employment legislation and social security. The remainder – some taxation, health, education, transport, local government, planning, the environment, police, courts, prisons and the rest – should be devolved to the four nations.

England is no longer my home and not much of my business. But I would be surprised if anyone across the border who has understood the implications is happy with the current deal. The nation which claims to have brought democracy to the world is in dire need of it.

Just read this piece, it is very thought-provoking and goes to show more needs to be done to get the message out to those not in the know.
There is far to many part-time patriots around and they need re educated on the plight of England, so they can see there is more to this country than football and sport.
England is a diverse and beautiful country, from the flat vista of Norfolk and Suffolk to the rolling hills and mountains of the Pennines. And all this is in peril from government mandate and EU bureaucracy. our country is going to be split into regions, the EU are still pushing for it to be done.
Cameron, with all his false platitudes, can not help us he is a unionist born and bred. England and her people are the only ones that can fight for justice now.

Join the CEP and help get the message out there, help get us our own parliament, like every one else in the union and help re educate the masses that are only part-time patriots, they need to join in and make our voices louder so those who think we are sour little Englanders can see we are a force to be reckoned with.

England’s identity crisis

Is there more to English national identity than a hapless football team? Unfortunately, the answer is probably no

Dejected English football fans take stock after Sunday’s game against Germany.

With its flags rolled up, face paint scrubbed and crusader costumes duly folded, England is set to retire. Not the football team, although after Sunday’s sorry performance against Germany that might be an idea, but the nation itself. For, when England’s national team ceases to exist as a viable entity – as it did at the weekend – the nation and, to some extent, its national identity goes with it. Most of the flags that have been brandished these last few weeks will now disappear. When the final whistle blew in Bloemfontein, the ref called time on a 90-minute nation. The flag of St George that was flying over Downing Street on Sunday was replaced by a union flag on Monday morning.

“The imagined community of millions,” wrote historian Eric Hobsbawm, “seems more real as a team of 11 named people.” But England is more imaginary than most, and only becomes real as a team of 11 people. For better or worse, every other team in the World Cup, from North Korea to Paraguay, boasts the basic tropes of nationhood: a state, a leader, an anthem and an army. Their identification with the national team emerges from their national identity.

But when it comes to English football, that relationship is reversed. This is particularly true because, thanks to the increasing fragmentation of our media experiences, football offers a rare opportunity for the nation to cohere around a single cultural event, however basic and masculine.

Institutionally speaking, England’s borders start where those of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland end. This difference has been accentuated since devolution. Now the Scots and Welsh have parliaments to give their identities shape, form and fact. But England? Well, England has a football and, to a less popular extent, a rugby team (the English cricket team has included players from the rest of the UK and, currently, even Ireland).

The English regularly confuse Englishness and Britishness, as though the semantics mark a distinction without a difference – but the Welsh and the Scots rarely see it that way. According to the British Attitudes Survey, only 14% of Scots chose “British” as the best or only way to describe themselves, compared to 44% of English people asked. With England now out of the World Cup, many sport fans will immediately have transferred their affections and hopes to Andy Murray at Wimbledon, as though they were backing a horse from the same stable. They’re not. Murray is Scottish.

The problem with this is that English identity is a very fragile thing. The re-emergence of the St George’s cross as a popular symbol is relatively recent and completely contested. Some have an ambivalent relationship to it. The journey from rightwing totem to national emblem is by no means complete. Whether it signifies a grievance at the absence of nationhood, or a desire for racial and ethnic exclusion, depends on who is waving it and the experience of those who see it. Only in sport does it have any hope of sending a consensual, coherent message.

Unfortunately, English football is an inadequate conduit for such a crucial conversation. For when it comes to football, England just aren’t that good. They are not that bad, either – but if a team consistently “underperforms”, then logic suggests their performance is commensurate with its ability. Since England won the World Cup in 1966, they have qualified for eight out of 11 World Cup finals, reached the quarter-finals three times and the semi-finals once. “England do just fine. They perform even better than expected, given what they have to start with,” wrote Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski in their book Why England Lose.

And yet, every previous time England were knocked out, the dominant story seems not to have been a lack of skill, but some freakish incident. The hand of God, an unjust sending off, the miskick that finds only our net – the fluke that shatters the dream with such predictable regularity that the only truly surprising thing is the surprise itself.

The sole reasonable explanation for this dislocation between expectation and reality is a bloated sense of entitlement that England should be better. The harking back to 1966, indulgence in world war metaphors and period costume on the terraces all smacks of anxiety about post-colonial decline. The team, like the nation, lives in the long shadow of its former glory – a reminder that England is not the force on the global stage that it used to be.

In this respect, things do seem to be changing. Sunday’s disallowed goal finally gave the nation a legitimate grudge that links football and Germany. In the past, that would have provided comfort to many. But as dusk fell across the country on Sunday night, the consensus seemed to be that England didn’t deserve to win. There is a maturity in that despondence.

Meanwhile, English people are defining themselves with increasing precision, suggesting a resurgence in English identity. The BSA survey showed that between 1992 and 2005, the percentage of English people describing themselves as such shot up from 31% to 40%. “Nationalism is not the awakening of nations into self-consciousness,” argues Ernest Gellner in Thought and Change. “It invents nations where they did not exist.”

In few places is this truer than with Englishness, which is very much a work in progress – although, of course, all national identities are, and football is not always the most coherent way of understanding their trajectory.

After France won the World Cup in 1998, the team’s broad racial and ethnic mix was regarded as a turning point in how French society understood its differences, within an official culture in denial of its multiculturalism. “What better example of our unity and our diversity than this magnificent team,” said the Socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin. Yet before the first whistle had blown in 2002, the French electorate was clearly having second thoughts. In presidential elections that year, Jospin was beaten into third place by the French far-right leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who won 17% of the votes. This year, the team was riven with racial and religious infighting. President Nicolas Sarkozy has demanded answers and held crisis meetings.

Unlike France, England has yet to make its footballing debacles an affair of state. But then that’s not difficult – because England does not have a state.

I saw this very apt image on face book and thought I would share with you all.

The Campaign for an English Parliament is urging all English patriots to resist the urge to take down their flags after England’s disappointing performance against Germany and show the world that we are not a country of part time patriots.

There is more to England than its football team, more to be proud of than making it into the final 16 of the world cup and more to be disappointed about than losing 4-1 to Germany. It’s time for the part time patriots to become full time patriots and leave their flags up and celebrate England every day, not just once every couple of years.

England is for life, not just for football.

When will the question get answered?
We have been lied to, once again the English were duped into believing the government would actually do something for the majority of voters in the so-called UK.

‘No early moves’ to replace Barnett formulaIT WOULD be “quite wrong” to replace the controversial formula that allocates funding to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Westminster government insisted yesterday.
It had been reported that there may be moves to replace the Barnett formula, which calculates the amount of public spending in the devolved areas of the UK.

However, government minister Lord De Mauley ruled out rapid action on the issue
despite pressure from Tory former chancellor Lord Lawson of Blaby and Labour’s Lord Barnett, who produced the formula which bears his name when he was chief secretary to the Treasury in the 1970s.

Lord Barnett told peers: “There is approximately £1,600 per head more spent in public expenditure in Scotland than in England, which has very serious implications for the coming cuts.”

He said a report by a Lords committee “unanimously recommended that is should be changed and based on need”.

Labour former minister Baroness Hollis of Heigham said: “Given that the Barnett formula funds on the basis of population and not need, it is profoundly unfair to overfund Scotland by the extent of £4 billion to £5bn a year while requiring underfunded local authorities in the rest of the country to make further savage cuts as their contribution to reducing the deficit.”

Lord De Mauley said the coalition understood the concerns but added: “In the light of the grave financial situation the country faces it would be quite wrong for a new government to rush to a decision on this complicated matter.

“We are carefully considering the various reports, but there is as yet no consensus on what a needs-based assessment would take account of.”

Here are some facts about devolution and how it affects us all.
Please point all the facts out to the uninitiated and if the information interests them, please point them in the direction of the CEP. http://englishparliament.net/campaign-english-parliament

The West Lothian question: what representation should a devolved region have in Westminster?

There are a number of options, all of which are problematic.

No representation at all

Some argue that this would be unfair, because the people of all three regions continue to pay taxes to the centre and therefore should have representation.

The ‘in and out’ solution: representation, but exclusion on particular subjects

Currently, Scottish MPs in Westminster can vote on all matters affecting the English, Welsh and Northern Irish; but not on matters transferred to the Scottish Parliament.

One solution, then, is to allow MPs from devolved regions to remain at Westminster, but be excluded from matters exclusively concerned with matters from the other regions. Thus, a Scottish MP would not be allowed to speak or vote on matters exclusively concerned with England, Wales, or Northern Ireland. However, there may be problems defining what is a matter ‘exclusive’ to one particular region.

There is a political imperative both in relation to ‘no representation’ or the ‘in and out solution’. The Labour Party has always needed the MPs returned from Scotland and Wales to maintain a majority in Government. If only English MPs could vote on English matters, it would cause issues for a Labour government.

This points to the key issue with the ‘in and out’ solution. It could create great disruption. In cases where the ruling party holds a slim majority in Westminster, the composition of the government might change depending on the matter being debated. For instance, on a matter affecting the English, it might be that a Labour government could not muster a majority, and so ‘the government’ might shift to the opposition. If there were no representation at all from the devolved regions this could impact the ability of the Labour party to obtain a majority in parliament.

Reduced representation

This is the solution which has been used historically. For instance, after the establishment of a Parliament in Northern Ireland, Northern Irish MPs in Westminster continued to have full voting rights. However, their number was reduced to 13, or about two-thirds of what More
Northern Ireland should have had in Westminster on the basis of population. † More

One answer, then, might be to allow MPs from devolved areas to retain full voting rights, but reduce their number by some specified proportion.

Leave things as they are

This approach would recognise that asymmetry between regions in the UK has long been present, and need not be answered.

More
The English Question: It is argued that there are two key questions here: – † More

1. Does England’s place within the Union need strengthening?

Two commonly-made suggestions are an English Parliament and English votes on English laws.
An English Parliament

There are a number of practical problems associated with the establishment of an English Parliament.

Given that English MPs make up 80% of all Westminster MPs, and make law for 85% of the UK, an English Parliament would seem an unnecessary replication of the UK Parliament. What would be the role of the English Parliament, and what then would be the role of the UK Parliament? Similarly, where would the English Parliament be located?

An English Parliament would also create, in effect, a federal system; but it would be a federal system which was highly asymmetrical, with one constituent unit—England—being mostly dominant. It would, in effect, be more important than Westminster.

On the other hand, as indicated above, there is a political issue where the government of the day depends on the MPs of the devolved regions to achieve the necessary majority to More
legitimise its claim to form the government. † More
It is entirely possible that an English parliament would have a different political bias to Parliament in Westminster.

English votes on English laws

See the discussion above in ‘the West Lothian Question’.

2. Does England’s government need decentralisation?

If the concern raised by the English question is that power is too distant from the English, then one potential solution is regionalism. However the attempt to create a regional assembly in the Northeast failed and this option has been shelved for the near future.

Does the funding of the devolved regions need to be reviewed?

Many are critical of the Barnett formula and the way in which funding is set for the devolved regions. In terms of public expenditure, the per capita spend is lowest in England and there are many English people who consider they subsidise the devolved regions at the expense of England.

Equally the devolved regions consider that they lose out in terms of funding and that the Barnett formula takes no account of the actual needs of each region and its people. The white paper issued by the Scottish government on 30 November 2009 – “Your Scotland, Your Voice, A National Conversation”- notes ‘the Scottish budget depends on unilateral decisions by the United Kingdom Government on spending in England. For example, the implementation of efficiency savings across the United Kingdom Government, and reductions in Department of Health baselines in England in the 2009 Budget, resulted in the Scottish budget being cut by £500 million in 2010/11.”

What would be the appropriate formula? Should the devolved regions have more autonomy over revenue raising?

What you need to know.

Devolution involves the delegation of state power by national government to a sub national level. The United Kingdom is a multinational state, comprising Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and Northern Ireland, and managing the relationship between the centre and its constituent parts is a perennial issue. Since 1998, many powers and functions, formerly held by the UK Parliament, have been transferred to sub national bodies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Under the British constitution, the UK, central government ultimately remains supreme. In theory, Westminster could take back the power it delegated, or legislate in spite of the devolved legislatures. By contrast, in a federal state, the division of powers between the centre and constituent part is fixed, or difficult to amend; it is not the national or central government which is supreme, but rather the constitution, which distributes power between centre and constituent part.

The devolutionary settlements in the UK are not equal: the powers, composition and executive arrangements of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all differ from each other. England is the only UK nation without a devolved legislature.

Why does it matter?

Devolution is the main means by which the relationships between Westminster and the 4 nations of the United Kingdom are now organised, with the exception of England.

The asymmetry of relations between Westminster and the 4 nations of the United Kingdom is leading many people to rethink the role of MPs from devolved regions at Westminster and whether or not England itself should have its own devolved government. Devolution is also viewed as the first stage on the road to independence.

Key Dates

1536-42 Union of England and Wales
1707 Union with Scotland
1800 Union with Ireland
1919 Speaker’s Conference to consider devolution held
1921 Anglo – Irish Treaty signed – 26 counties of Ireland effectively become the Irish Free State; 6 counties remain to become Northern Ireland
1922 Government of Ireland Act passed – establishes Northern Ireland Parliament with broad powers of legislation
1950 Scottish Covenant calling for devolved government signed by 2 million Scots
1972 direct rule is imposed on Northern Ireland; the Northern Irish Parliament is suspended
1973 The Royal Commission on the Constitution (the ‘Kilbrandon Commission’) reports, recommending devolved legislatures for Scotland and Wales
1979 referendum on Scottish and Welsh devolution held
1989 Scottish Constitutional Convention holds its first meeting
1995 Scottish Constitutional Convention publishes Scotland’s Parliament, Scotland’s Right – a call for devolved government
1997 referendum on Scottish and Welsh devolution held, with majorities in both areas voting in favour of devolution; introduction of proportional representation at devolved level
1998 Scotland Act
1998 Wales Act
1998 Good Friday agreement signed; referendums held in both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic later ratify it
2002 Northern Ireland Assembly suspended
2004 referendum on regional government for the Northeast of England fails
2006 Government of Wales Act
2007 power restored to the Northern Ireland Assembly

The Key Facts

Devolution is one approach to the problem of governing the four nations of Britain. It involves the delegation of state power by national government to a sub national level. Why is devolution necessary? There are a number of general arguments for and against devolution.

For
Devolution provides recognition of the historic existence of nations and acknowledges their right to determine their own affairs
Devolution eases pressures on sub national units to secede from the state
Devolution may increase efficiency; power is best exercised and held accountable at the level at which it most directly affects people
Devolution may free the central government from focusing on local issues and allow it to concentrate on broader issues

Against
Devolution may lead to the fragmentation and eventual breakup of the United Kingdom
Devolution may lead to inequality between regions; there should be uniformity of treatment within a state
Devolution means the addition of another layer of government

Since 1999 both Scotland and Northern Ireland have had legislatures which can enact primary legislation on certain devolved matters; the Welsh National Assembly acquired a similar capacity in 2006. Where power is not devolved, it is ‘reserved’ to the UK Parliament. Generally speaking, matters which remain the responsibility of the UK Parliament include foreign relations, national security, the constitution, and taxation.

All three devolved legislatures, being ultimately ‘subordinate’ to Westminster, specifically lack the power to legislate incompatibly with EC law, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Human Rights Act 1998.

The devolutionary settlements are not equal: the powers, composition and executive arrangements of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all differ in form and scope. Thus Douglas Hurd argued that devolution was “producing a system of amazing untidiness … a Kingdom of four parts, of three Secretaries of State each with different powers, of two Assemblies and one Parliament, each different in composition and powers from the others.”

The devolutionary settlements of 1998 have made prominent the English Question: what should be done about England, given devolution elsewhere? England is the only UK nation without a devolved legislature, although it does have regional ministers. Why should England not have a greater political voice? There has been talk about creating an English Parliament, but there are a number of practical problems in establishing such an institution .

Westminster

Each region remains represented by a number of MPs at Westminster roughly in proportion to its population.

One problem highlighted by devolution is the issue of determining what representation a devolved region should have in Westminster. This is known as the West Lothian question,
named after the constituency of the MP who first popularised the issue.
The devolutionary settlements have been accompanied by a set of administrative arrangements setting out mutual understandings and to make relations between
Westminster and the devolved regions smoother.

The Lord Chancellor and the Ministry of Justice have current overall responsibility for devolutionary policy at Westminster.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each have a Secretary of State and an office located at Westminster. Each Secretary of State represents the interests of his or her respective nation at Westminster, acting as a guardian of devolution and ensuring the region’s interests are fully taken into account.

These Secretaries are responsible to the UK Parliament, not the respective devolved legislatures. In their respective regions, the Secretaries of State represent UK government interests. In practice, however, the devolved regions usually liaise with the relevant UK government departments.

England has nine regional ministers at Westminster. Appointed as part of the Governance of Britain policy in 2007, the regional ministers have a similar role to the devolved regions’ secretaries of state, with a particular emphasis on economic development. The regional ministers’ role is to ‘provide a clear sense of strategic direction’ for their respective regions, to represent the regions’ interests in central government, and represent the central government in the regions.

At Westminster, there are also regional select committees and grant committees for the English regions, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Select committees for the regions (English and devolved) operate in a similar manner to other select committees: they examine the work of the Westminster departments responsible for a particular region. So, for instance, the Scottish select committee examines the expenditure, administration and policy of the Scotland Office, and its relations with the Scottish government. Grand committees consist of all the MPs of that region. They debate broad issues relevant to their region, question the relevant minister, and can if necessary examine relevant legislation. Grand Committees can also meet outside Westminster.

England

England, alone of the three nations, has no separate legislature and government; it is governed solely by Westminster. This raises starkly ‘the English question’.

In light of this, the Labour government suggested the establishment of regional assemblies. This was tested in 2004, when a referendum was held in the Northeast of England on this very matter. On a 50% turnout, 78% of those voting rejected the idea of a regional Parliament. The idea of regional government for the Northeast was dropped.

Instead, England currently has nine regional ministers at Westminster, appointed as part of the Governance of Britain policy in 2007. These nine regions represented are:
East Midlands
East of England
London
North East
North West
South East
South West
West Midlands
Yorkshire and the Humber

Scotland

In the 1997 referendum, the Scottish electorate was asked two questions: should there be a Scottish Parliament, and should such a Parliament have tax-varying powers. Of those who voted, 74.3% voted yes to a Scottish Parliament, and 63.5% voted yes for tax-varying powers. A Scottish Parliament with tax-varying powers was established under the Scotland Act 1998.
Composition

The composition of the unicameral Scottish Parliament is determined by a proportional representation system (AMS). There are 129 MSPs in the Scottish Parliament: 73 are elected by constituency vote and the remaining 56 by party vote. There are constitutionally required fixed-term elections every 4 years.

As a result of proportional representation, no single party has yet gained a majority in the Scottish Parliament. This has meant that on election night, Scottish political parties have negotiated amongst themselves to form a stable government. However, in the first two parliamentary terms, the Scottish Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats functioned relatively well as a majority coalition; the present Scottish government is the Scottish Nationalist Party, running as a minority government. There has been little sign of instability. There is a four-year fixed parliamentary term.

As a practical matter the Scottish government is usually the party with the most seats in Parliament. A First Minister is chosen by the Scottish Parliament. The First Minister then appoints the other members of Cabinet, who collectively then make up the Scottish government. The Scottish government must retain the support of a majority of the Scottish Parliament in order to govern. There is a Scottish civil service, who are responsible to the Scottish government.
Powers

The powers of the Scottish Parliament are determined by the Scotland Act 1998. In essence, the Scottish Parliament can enact primary and secondary legislation on any matter not reserved to the UK Parliament.

The areas reserved to Westminster are set out in the Scotland Act, and include matters such as:
the constitution
defence and national security
the fiscal, economic and monetary system
trade and industry
some aspects of transport
social security
foreign affairs
the civil service
immigration and nationality
energy: electricity, coal, oil, gas, nuclear energy
employment
equal opportunities

Matters devolved to Scotland include:
health
education and training
local government
social work
housing
planning
tourism, economic development and financial assistance to industry
some aspects of transport
law and home affairs, including most aspects of criminal and civil law
the police and fire services
agriculture, forestry and fishing

There is an understanding that the UK Parliament will not legislate on a devolved matter without first obtaining the consent of the Scottish Parliament: this is known as the Sewell convention. Although the Westminster Parliament in theory could legislate on any matter in contravention of the Scotland Act, it does not, because this violates the spirit of devolution.

The Calman Commission

The Calman Commission was set up in 2007 to re-examine the devolutionary settlement 10 years on. It was established at the behest of the pro-union opposition parties at the Scottish Parliament, and was a response to the SNP government’s ‘National Conversation’ paper designed to look at options for Scotland’s constitutional future—in particular, independence.

The Calman Commission’s final report was published in 2009. It was not concerned with Scottish independence; it accepted the current division of powers and was only concerned with improving the current devolutionary relationship. Key recommendations included:
The reduction of income tax by 10p across all rates by the UK Treasury, with a corresponding reduction in the block grant from Westminster. Holyrood would then be given the power to make up the difference: they can choose to tax more or less.
The Barnett formula should remain in place pro tem, as the Scottish Parliament still requires a grant from Westminster as many taxes are still not resolved or defined.
Devolving to the Scottish Parliament a number of other taxes, such as the Stamp duty, aggregates levy and landfill tax.
The devolution of powers to legislate on such matters as drink-driving, speeding
limits and the running of Scottish elections.

On St Andrew’s day, 30 November 2009, the Scottish government published a white paper on the constitutional future of Scotland, with independence as its favoured option. In the view of the First Minister, Alex Salmond, independence is the only way that Scotland will be able to achieve its full economic potential and he has called for a referendum to be held in 2010 to decide the issue. However the minority Scottish National party administration does not have enough support from opposition parties to ensure that a referendum is held in 2010.

Three other options are contained in the white paper:
The present set up should remain
Acceptance of the recommendations in the Calman Commission
Further and more significant transfer of responsibilities from Westminster to Scotland.

Wales

In the 1997 referendum, the Welsh electorate was asked simply if there should be a Welsh Assembly. Of those who voted, 50.3% voted yes. The Welsh National Assembly was accordingly established under the Wales Act 1998.
Composition

The composition of the unicameral Welsh National Assembly is determined by a proportional representation system (AMS). There are 60 AMs (Assembly Members): 40 are elected by constituency vote and the remainder by party vote. There is a fixed 4-year electoral term.

Under proportional representation no single party has gained a majority in the Assembly. However, Welsh governments have been reasonably stable, aided by a four-year fixed parliamentary term.

The Welsh Assembly chooses a First Minister, who then appoints Assembly Ministers who make up the government. Under the Government of Wales Act 2006, the maximum size of the government will be 14. The Welsh government must retain the confidence of the majority of the National Assembly in order to govern. There is a Welsh civil service, who are responsible to the Welsh executive.

Powers

Initially, under the Government of Wales Act 1998, the Welsh National Assembly had no power to make primary legislation: it could only enact secondary legislation via primary legislation made by the Westminster Parliament.

However, the 2006 Wales Act granted to the Welsh National Assembly the power to make ‘measures’, which are equivalent to primary legislation, on certain areas. This power is far more narrowly defined than the power of the Scottish Parliament, but can be expanded by legislation passed in Westminster.

The 2009 All Wales Convention

The All Wales Convention was set up by the governing coalition government of Labour and Plaid Cyrmu in 2007 to examine the state of the devolutionary settlement in Wales, and to determine public opinion on whether or not the National Assembly should be given greater law-making powers as in Scotland.

Some of the findings include:
72% of all Welsh people favoured the present devolutionary settlement or wanted more.
However, there is limited knowledge about the Government of Wales Act 2006
A ‘yes’ vote in a referendum for greater law-making powers is possible
If a referendum is to be held before the 2011 Welsh election, a decision needs to be made by June 2010.

Northern Ireland

Devolution for Northern Ireland was a different matter: the Northern Irish Assembly was part of a broader attempt to bring to an end ongoing hostilities within Northern Ireland and more generally to end political violence caused by issues in Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom. As part of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, it was agreed that, amongst other things, a new Northern Ireland Assembly would be established, along with a power-sharing executive.

The Good Friday Agreement was ratified by referendums both in North Ireland and the Irish Republic. In Northern Ireland, 71.1% of those participating voted in favour of the agreement; in the Irish Republic, 94.4% voted in favour of giving up territorial claims to Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Assembly was established by the Northern Ireland Act 1998.

Composition

The composition of the Northern Ireland Assembly is determined by a proportional representation system (STV). There are 108 MLAs (members of the Legislative Assembly), representing 18 constituencies. Each constituency is represented by 6 MLAs. There is a fixed 4-year term.

However, the Assembly was suspended in 2002 when the key political parties were unable to work together. When the Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended, executive functions were exercised by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland—in short, there was direct rule of Northern Ireland again. A transitional Assembly was convened in 2006 and the National Assembly re-established in 2007.

The Northern Irish government consists of a First Minister, a Deputy First Minister and 10 other Ministers. There is a complex arrangement to ensure that power is shared between major political parties. The First and Deputy First Minister are chosen by the Assembly, and must gain both a majority of the Assembly members voting, and a majority from both Nationalist and Unionist parties. The First and Deputy First Ministers must act jointly in all matters. Further, and unlike the other devolved regions, the 10 remaining ministerial positions are not chosen by the First and Deputy First Ministers, but instead allocated in proportion to the strength of the parties in the Assembly. This in effect creates a ‘compulsory coalition’.

There is a Northern Irish civil service, which is responsible to the Northern Irish executive.

Powers

The allocation of powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly is somewhat complex. Under the Northern Ireland Act 1998, there are three categories of legislative powers:
excepted matters, which can only be transferred by primary legislation at Westminster; but are envisaged to always be the responsibility of the UK Parliament
reserved matters, which can be transferred by order, if there is cross-community consent
transferred matters, which are the responsibility of the Assembly.

Excepted matters include:
the Crown
parliamentary elections, and Assembly elections including the franchise
international relations
defence of the realm
nationality
national taxation
appointment and removal of judges
registration of political parties
national security
nuclear energy and installations
provisions dealt with in the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973
the subject matter of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 with specified exceptions

Reserved matters include:
criminal law
policing
prisons
civil aviation
the Post Office
disqualification from membership of the Assembly
emergency powers
civil defence

Transferred matters include:
finance and personnel
health, social services and public safety
education
agriculture and rural development
enterprise, trade and investment
learning and employment
regional development
social development

In essence, the Northern Ireland Assembly has a similar broad set of legislative powers to the Scottish Parliament: but where it differs is in the matters currently reserved to Westminster—matters linked to social order, policing and criminal justice. In addition, the Assembly cannot pass a law which discriminates on the basis of religious belief or political opinion.

The Barnett Formula

The devolved regions have few means of raising their own revenue.
Generally speaking, much funding for the devolved areas comes by block grant from Westminster, allocated in accordance with the ‘Barnett formula’. In essence, the Barnett formula takes per capita spending levels in England as the baseline. Where changes are made to spending levels in England, funding to the other three regions is changed accordingly. The changes in per capita spending to the other three regions are made with the ultimate aim of bringing spending levels down to England’s level: historically, the three regions have received more public funding than England.

Many people are critical of the Barnett formula, including Lord Barnett, the Treasury official after whom the formula was named. Some of the problems with the Barnett Formula are:
There is no reason why England should function as the baseline
The formula is concerned with changes in the levels of public expenditure, not the levels themselves
The formula takes no account of the actual needs of the regions; it may be that one region needs more public funds than another region
The formula pits the devolved regions against the central government. The devolved regions are not responsible for raising their own revenue and the formula ultimately aims to reduce the devolved regions’ per capita spending to the level of England.

A recent House of Lords select committee on the Barnett formula argued that while simple, stable and avoiding ring-fencing, the Barnett formula failed to take account of population change in the various regions, and thus was arbitrary and unfair. Moreover, the Treasury, who administered the formula, was in effect a judge in its own cause.

The committee recommended that devolution funding should be based on relative need and that an independent body be established with the responsibility for making recommendations about the allocation of public monies based on population and a needs-based formula.

Practical Issues

It is probably still too soon to tell what practical issues may arise by reason of the creation of the devolved regions. However, the recent case involving the decision by the Scottish justice secretary to release from prison convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, for the first time focused on the possibility that decisions taken in the devolved settlements might have wider implications for the United Kingdom as a whole. From the international perspective at least, decisions of the Scottish executive are imputed to the United Kingdom as a whole, so that the al-Megrahi affair has foreign affairs ramifications for the UK despite arising technically in an area for which responsibility has been devolved (law and home affairs).

From devolution to independence

Many regard devolution as the first step towards independence. The Scottish National Party has made clear that it regards movement towards separation of Scotland from the rest of the UK as a legitimate and realisable goal. Such separation would spell the end of the Union. The Labour party has indicated that permitting a referendum on Scottish independence is a ‘possibility’ and the Liberal Democrats have also offered support to this proposition. The Conservatives, remain opposed to independence and support the continuance of the United Kingdom in its current form.

History

The debate about transferring power from the central state to a sub national level in the United Kingdom is not new. There was much debate about devolution at the beginning of the 20th century in relation to Ireland—this was the debate over ‘Home Rule’. Indeed, how to deal with Ireland, then entirely part of the United Kingdom, was the central political issue in early 20th century British politics.

The eventual partition of Ireland into the Irish Free State (later the Republic of Eire) and Northern Ireland, which remained part of the United Kingdom, ended with the establishment of a bicameral Parliament in Stormont, Belfast, in 1921.

The Northern Ireland Parliament was an early example of devolved government. In practice, the Northern Irish Parliament was dominated by the Protestant majority in Northern Ireland.

The Northern Irish Parliament was suspended in 1972 in the face of increasing violence in the region, and direct rule by Westminster was imposed. From 1972 until 1999 Northern Ireland in effect was governed by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. During this time legislation for Northern Ireland was enacted by Westminster.

There were other institutions in Westminster which recognised and acknowledged the United Kingdom’s multinational character. For instance, Secretaries of State for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were created over the 19th and 20th centuries to represent the three nations’ interests at Westminster; and so too with the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish grand committees in the UK Parliament. All of these institutions, however, were ultimately responsible only to the UK Parliament.

Devolution became a national issue again in the 1970s. The rise of nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales, the relative electoral success of the Scottish Nationalist Party in Scotland, and the weakness of its majority at Westminster, encouraged the Labour government to rethink devolution. This ultimately led to referendums on devolution in both Scotland and Wales in 1979. Both failed. In Scotland, although 51.6% voted in favour of devolution, this only constituted 32.9% of all eligible electors. A positive vote of 40% of all eligible electors was required to establish a devolved legislature. In Wales, 80% voted against devolution.

The Labour Party committed itself to devolved government for the regions in its 1997 electoral manifesto. After Labour came to power in 1997, referendums were held in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In each of those regions, the majority of those participating voted in favour of establishing devolved government. All three regions now have legislatures elected by proportional representation.

What others think.

The Campaign for an English Parliament

http://www.thecep.org.uk/wordpress/

English Parliament Online

http://www.englishparliament.net/

Institute for Public Policy and Research “Beyond the Constitution? Englishness in a Post-Devolved Britain”

http://www.ippr.org/publicationsandreports/publication.asp?id=590

The Scottish Independence Guide

http://www.scottishindependence.com/

References and Links

Brigid Hadfield “The Territorial“ Vernon Bogdanor (ed) The British Constitution in the Twentieth Century (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003)

Robert Hazell The English Question (The Constitution Unit, UCL, 2006)

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/publications/unit-publications/130.html

Anthony King The British Constitution (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007)

Rodney Brazier Constitutional Reform: Reshaping the British Political System (third edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007)

Constitution Unit: Devolution Monitoring Reports

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/research/devolution/devo-monitoring-programme.html

House of Commons Library Research Paper “An Introduction to Devolution in the UK”

http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2003/rp03-084.pdf

House of Commons Library Standard Note “The UK Devolved Legislatures: Some Comparisons between Their Powers and Work”

http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/briefings/snpc-04505.pdf

House of Commons Library Standard Note “Concordats and Devolution Guidance Notes”

http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/briefings/snpc-03767.pdf

House of Commons Library Standard Note “The Sewell Convention”

http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/briefings/snpc-02084.pdf

House of Commons Library Standard Note “The West Lothian Question”

http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/briefings/snpc-02586.pdf

House of Lords Select Committee on the Barnett Formula

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldselect/ldbarnett/139/139.pdf

Key Websites

Government Offices for the English Regions

http://www.gos.gov.uk/national/

The Devolved Legislatures

Scotland

Scottish Parliament

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/

Scottish Government

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Home

Secretary of State for Scotland/The Scotland Office

http://www.scotlandoffice.gov.uk/scotlandoffice/CCC_FirstPage.jsp

The Commission on Scottish Devolution (the Calman Commission)

http://www.commissiononscottishdevolution.org.uk/

Wales

Welsh Assembly

http://www.assemblywales.org/

Welsh Assembly Government

http://wales.gov.uk/?lang=en

Secretary of State for Wales/The Wales Office

http://www.walesoffice.gov.uk/

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland Assembly

http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/

Northern Ireland Executive

http://www.northernireland.gov.uk/

Secretary of State for Northern Ireland/The Northern Ireland Office

http://www.nio.gov.uk/

Source

This is from Parliament.uk webpages
Just something for people to read, and to point people not in the know so they can get some understanding what we fight for and against.

Where does England fit in the increasingly devolved United Kingdom?

It is now over 10 years since the devolved legislatures and administrations were (re-)established in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Each arrangement has developed differently, but each has moved toward further devolution from Westminster. The evolving devolution settlement prompts questions about the representation of and funding for all parts of the United Kingdom.
The West Lothian Question

The role of MPs from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in the UK Parliament has become controversial now that there are devolved legislatures and administrations in those areas, responsible for subjects such as education, housing and health.

The so-called West Lothian (or English) Question asks why MPs from the non-English parts of the UK can vote on all English matters, while English MPs cannot generally vote on Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish domestic matters (which have largely become the responsibility of the devolved bodies).

These issues came to the fore with the Government in the previous Parliament sometimes being dependent on the votes of MPs from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to win votes in the House of Commons on legislation affecting England only. With the Conservatives winning a minority of seats across the UK but a majority of seats in England, and with the tight electoral arithmetic in the Commons, the salience of this question will increase.
English votes for English laws?

Could a system be introduced in the House of Commons whereby only English MPs would vote on ‘English’ bills or ‘English’ bills would pass only with the support of English MPs? The Conservative Party stated in its manifesto that a Conservative government would introduce new rules so that legislation referring specifically to England, or England and Wales, could not be enacted without the consent of MPs representing constituencies of those two areas.

Many challenges remain. Precisely which bills are ‘English’? A large proportion are a mixture of English and UK extent, as other measures are added during the passage of a Bill. What about ‘English’ bills that have public expenditure implications across the UK? Would such a system create two classes of MP?
An English Parliament?

There is very limited mainstream political momentum for a separate parliament for England. It is hard to see how a UK federation of four parts would work, given the population size and wealth of England in relation to the rest of the UK. The Liberal Democrat Party stated in its manifesto that it would ‘address’ the status of England within a federal Britain, through its promised Constitutional Convention.

There are other outstanding devolution issues for the House of Commons:
Is there a continuing role for MPs from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in devolved, as well as reserved, matters at Westminster? Westminster can and has legislated for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on devolved matters (with the consent of the devolved legislature concerned) on a number of occasions since 1999 – much more often than originally expected. The Calman Commission has recommended closer working between the UK and Scottish Parliaments.
Should the numbers of MPs from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland be reduced? Despite the devolved legislatures, they currently have disproportionate numbers of seats compared with their electorates.

Is it time to replace the Barnett formula?

The 30-year-old Barnett formula, which allocates public money to the devolved administrations, has been criticised on a number of grounds. The current arrangements are alleged to be unfair: public spending per head is 18% higher in Scotland and 16% higher in Wales than in England. With cuts to public spending widely expected, this disparity could come under even closer scrutiny. The current system has also been criticised for failing to give the devolved administrations responsibility for raising their own revenue.

Reflecting this dissatisfaction, there have been a number of recent reviews of the Barnett formula. These include the Calman and Holtham Commissions in Scotland and Wales respectively and a report by a House of Lords Committee. These reviews made a variety of recommendations for reform, including greater powers over taxation for the Scottish Parliament and replacement of the formula with arrangements based on the relative need of the different parts of the UK. Gaining consensus on these relative public spending needs is likely to be a difficult task.

Will the spectre of public sector cuts result in more pressure for reform of the Barnett formula? Or will the influence of the nationalist parties in a hung parliament act in favour of its retention?

The web page is called Rise Like Lions and asks the questions: If an English Team , why not an English Parliament.
And : Do You Support England.
link:http://riselikelions.co.uk/

Do you wear three lions on your shirt? Do you kick every ball and cheer every goal? Do you ever stop to wonder why England will be the only nation at the South Africa World Cup 2010 without its own national parliament?

If an English Team, why not an English Parliament?
Do you think that the English people deserve a voice? Do we the people of England deserve recognition and representation as the English people – the nation of England? Do you wonder why the other nations of Britain have their own parliaments but we do not? Do you get annoyed when our political leaders go on and on about Britishness but never mention England or address our sense of English national identity? And why on earth do they not allow us what every other nation on earth takes as a given: a public holiday on our national day – St George’s Day!

Rise up England and shake your chains to earth like dew.